Yorkshire CCC's Matt Milnes hoping to make September return after lengthy injury lay-off

The 28-year-old pace bowler, who joined on a three-year deal from Kent in November, was diagnosed with a recurrence of a lumbar stress fracture in late April, having first sustained the injury towards the end of last season while playing in a County Championship game against Essex at Canterbury.

It was initially believed that the all-rounder would miss the rest of the season and, while the window of opportunity may be narrow, Milnes is determined to do everything he can to put himself back in the frame for head coach Ottis Gibson’s team.

“I know that Matthew Fisher did a similar thing at the same time last year and came back in September,” Milnes told the Yorkshire CCC website. “I know everyone’s got different journeys, but that’s a goal of mine.

“Maybe come August, I’ll be able to bat and bowl a small amount. It’s probably in the plan (to play some second-team cricket as a batter) at some point depending on the schedules. That would be great to get back among the lads.

The injury was made even harder to take for Milnes given his encouraging debut for Yorkshire in the County Championship defeat to Leicestershire at Headingley in April when he took four wickets and hit an impressive 75 in the first innings.

Having recovered from the injury before, though, Milnes is confident about completing his road to a full recovery.

“Everything’s gone to plan so far,” he added. “The first 8-10 weeks, you’re making sure the bone heals and not putting it in any positions which prevent that. That’s the easy part, physically - but mentally it’s quite tough.

“Once that’s over, you can start running. I also started bowling off one step a couple of weeks ago, which makes you feel like you can play cricket again.

“It’s tricky at times because there are milestones you can get to and tick off. But, having done it before, you feel a bit more numb to it and that excitement’s not there when you start running or bowling.

“On the back of that, with cricket going on in front of you, it can be doubly tricky.

“But, on the other side of it, it does help knowing what you can push through based on what you did last time. Hopefully it will all go swimmingly from here.

“It feels fairly early days but there’s light at the end of the tunnel.”